Photo thread: The Gulch, Midtown, West End

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These are just some shots of the urban environment in The Gulch, Midtown, and West End. It's sort of a mixed bag. Some of it is recent development...some is very established. Some of it is frustrating...and some of it has great potential. I'll try to add the comments in later, but this is a lot to upload right now. Please be patient, but feel free to add you own comments (*please wait until I'm finished uploading...there should be several posts, and I will indicate when I am finished at the end).

Pine Street Lofts. The little courtyard with a pool faces Gleaves Street. Hopefully someday there will be some nice development to face it on the opposite side.

The "extension" of Pine Street, which basically serves as an access road. I believe the proposed pedestrian bridge to SoBro would be somewhere along this stretch.

Looking across the Kayne rail yard to Union & Cummins Stations. The tracks are of course very active here. There didn't seem to be a moment when a train wasn't moving through while I was taking pictures.

The lower level of the Pine Street Lofts, looking down the Pine Street corridor. Rhythm & Midtown can be seen in the distance.

Seems like the finishing touches are being put on the residential section of the Pine Street Lofts.

But the retail section still has a long way to go. Notice the height of the ceiling here. It's about 2 residential floor's worth.

The front face of Pine Street Lofts, as it appears from 11th Ave.

Looking back down Pine St towards the office. The sign for Kocktails & Kouture (what an obnoxious name) is for an establishment in Velocity. That and/or Bar Louie was absolutely packed with young people. In fact, every bar I passed was absolutely packed to the brim (I think that's a sign that we could use more of them.

The curve of 11th, looking at the urban streetfront along the east side. It has turned into quite a wall of development. It is already quite vibrant (I didn't go out of my way to get shots of people, but trust me...plenty of people out walking the streets and enjoying the weather). Just imagine what this place will be like when it fills in completely. Really, Nashville's first high density neighborhood...and an example (at least on some scale) to follow in other areas of redevelopment.

Laurel House.

The Demonbreun St viaduct (I really love what they did to it with the "train" pillars), and the Bohan building (one of the first Gulch projects) and heading down to "M Street." This is part of what makes the Gulch a little disjointed. I am anxious to see the infill here...Gulch Crossing (which would be where I'm standing), along with a few of the developments on 12th (Hensler's and Eakin's towers...maybe a revival of Griffin Plaza).

A look down the rail lines. In the distance, you can see the I-40 overpass.

Looking back to the south, you can see what I mean by the gap in development. Still, a wonderful sight.

Ongoing development on McGavock Street.

Kayne Prime Steakhouse.

Looking up McGavock to Whiskey Kitchen.

I just thought this old sign was pretty cool. I hope they replace it with something of a similar flavor.

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Looking at this sight line, it would appear that McGavock connects to Midtown. That's the Hilton Garden Inn on Broadway.

Whiskey Kitchen. Not everything in the Gulch is exactly urban...not that it's a bad thing. There's some really awesome reuse in this area.

...and you crest the hill and realize that there's an interstate in between. One thing that an interstate cap would help with is providing greater connectivity between districts like The Gulch and Midtown. Sure, Division, Demonbreun, Broadway, Church, and Charlotte cross...but can you imagine if Laurel, McGavock, and Grundy did? It would fuse the two districts together and help towards my dream of a cohesive urban environment, where not only do the main streets connect, but the side streets as well.

Another look back towards SoBro, where the Music City Center, the Omni, and the Encore are visible, as well as the Methodist Publishing House. In time, there will be more high rises sprouting out of this area. This, along with the views of Downtown and Midtown make you realize how The Gulch is just in the middle of all this action. It will be the "connector" of our urban highrise districts.

The new sign for Eakin's office tower (as stated, 300,000 sq ft). If this view is the intended orientation, then it would appear as if the tower portion will be closest to the interstate...which will have a bigger visual impact for those driving through (until the interstate is capped, of course ).

I've heard 18 stories...but if you're counting the rows, it would be 19.5. At least 1.5 for the bottom level...but possibly a very tall lobby. I would estimate this to be in the neighborhood of 250 feet. 240-275.

A pack of scooters and a pack of cyclists nearly collided at the intersection. The carnage there would have been...

A peek at the equipment working on Hensler's tower...but from the Eakin site. That's where these big augers are.

Not just moving dirt...I spy rebar.

One of the old houses on 12th at Laurel. Griffin Plaza would look nice right behind it...

Looking at the massing of Icon, Terrazzo, and Mercury View Lofts.

...add to that Velocity and Pine Street Lofts.

Another shot of Hensler's site.

What has become a very active little retail district. Plenty of folks were out shopping. I would love to see more of this...

Station Inn...OK, it's not the prettiest place...but the Gulch needs to retain some of its funk....er, Bluegrass.

The odd shaped lot at 11th/12th and Pine, where an equally odd low rise is proposed. It would be nice to complete the block.

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I'll try to go back and add comments to them as I have time. Some of the shots appear to be random, but there's a reason behind at least most of them. Several things have multiple shots/multiple angles. I was trying to not be too picky. I didn't go everywhere I wanted to, but rather tried to see as much as possible until my legs gave out.

Any regular poster in the Nashville forum has my permission to use these shots at any time on Urban Planet. If you want to use them outside of this site...that's OK, as long as it is not for any sort of commercial purposes, but I do ask that you credit my work. Ron, if you find any of these images useful for the development map, by all means, use what you like.

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Excellent photos of some prime real estate in a city that's clearly booming with growth and major developments underway.

Did you not take any pics of the excavation work that's now underway at the site of the West End Summit?

I took a shot at the location, but to be honest, I wasn't planning to cross West End Ave at that time just to take a pic (all it is right now is just a deep hole...no "real" work happening yet). I thought that if I came back via Church or Hayes (I didn't) that I might get some shots from the back of the site.

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I was out and about Saturday afternoon as well. I drove through the Gulch on the way to East Nashville and noticed it was brimming with pedestrians as well. I was excited to see all the activity already especially when we consider how much more is in the pipeline.

Edited April 15, 2013 by ariesjow

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^I've had an enormous problem viewing this thread. The pics after post #1 didn't show up at all and the page froze repeatedly. Can the pics be posted to a site like Flickr where we can view them individually ?

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^Yeah, that worked, thanks (although there was a really odd hiccup even on the link... when I went through about a third of the photos, what was in the thumbnails was not there in the full-sized ones, just error messages, some gifs and other assorted photos, including one of some topless European blonde with awe-inspiring breasts. Can't say THAT was an unpleasant surprise. When I refreshed the link, all the thumbnails showed just fine in full size. Weird).